


Come Back

by EarthsickWithoutYou



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 03:20:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14035071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthsickWithoutYou/pseuds/EarthsickWithoutYou
Summary: What if Hap stops the car when Prairie chases after him?





	Come Back

“Come back!” Prairie’s raw, primal scream tears into Hap’s soul, but it is imperative that he blocks her out. 

_Don’t look, just keep driving._ He presses his lips together and feels his heart racing so hard he just might be on the verge of cardiac arrest. It’s a challenge to keep his shaking fingers around the steering wheel because now he’s killed people, not in self-defense but in a jealous rage. In the wake of seeing the bond between Prairie and Homer, he lost his mind completely. He’s behaved like an animal, holding Prairie down in the dirt and wielding a knife…as if he could ever cut her, even in theory… _never…._

_I’m pathetic._ The tears pool in his eyes and he realizes that he isn’t driving away as fast as he should, that he’s hesitating and she’s gaining on him, feet slamming into the pavement. She’s a warrior queen in that tattered floral dress, her hair disheveled, not weakened in her feral state but empowered, _all-powerful._

That isn’t why he slams on the breaks, sending the car into just a small hint of a tailspin, not as bad as it would have been if he’d really been speeding. A cloud of dust flies up and Prairie coughs, backing up, but just for a few beats.

He stopped because he let himself look back and see her face. Wide blue eyes begging him not to leave her alone, frail body trembling with fear and rage. _I cannot be without her._

For the first time ever, the realization dawns on him, and maybe he’s always known it would come to this, since the train station, her haunting song, the oysters and fries. The wind through the helicopter window. _It doesn’t matter what happens to me anymore._ Prairie runs full-tilt to the car and he leans over to open the passenger side door. 

_She is all that matters._

She climbs in awkwardly but determinedly, a jumble of exhausted limbs, and Hap looks again into her beautiful face right before she lunges at him. Something snaps in his brain and just like that, he forgets about The Work.

He turns to face her, says, “Prairie, I’m so—” but she cuts him off with a harsh slap across his cheek.

“How dare you?” She demands throatily, “How could you ever leave me like that?”

Prairie keeps going and he lets her, hangs his head but she jerks it up in her fingers and smacks him with all her strength. Then her palms get tired and she starts in with her nails, scratching at his neck and shoulders before balling up her fist and driving it into his mouth, where he soon tastes blood. Hap just leaves it there, muttering defeatedly, “I know.”

“You _asshole!_ You son of a bitch!” Prairie’s now just pushing at his body, then pulling it back towards her, fingers clutched around the fabric of his shirt, popping two buttons, which of all things startles him. “You bastard! I hate you!”

There it is, what he was trying to avoid by getting rid of her. Hap thought if he could just leave Prairie behind, he wouldn’t have to confront the way she despises him, wouldn’t have to see it in her eyes, or worse still her love for Homer. Even thinking of her with _him_ for a split second makes Hap want to vomit, so he lowers his forehead to the steering wheel and closes his eyes. He'd indulged the ridiculous fantasy that if he didn't see Prairie, she couldn't make him weak anymore. What a joke.

Prairie won’t tolerate his escape from her view. She slaps him on the back of the head and demands, “Hey! Don’t you look away from me!” Then she’s yanking him at her again, up on her knees and leaned as far over the stick shift as she’ll fit, until their faces are close enough that his heaving breaths shake the sweat-dampened, dirty blonde tendrils framing her face. “Don’t you, don’t—” Sobs rack her body and she pulls him even tighter, until his hands reach up and cup her elbows. As always, she does nothing to prevent him from touching her, sinks into his hands.

“Prairie, I’m so sorry,” Hap chokes out, and they’re both crying, filthy, miserable. The strap he cut hangs pathetically from her shoulder and he places his hand there, stroking her until her eyes snap back open from a temporary daze. He can’t read Prairie’s expression, but then again her eyes are entirely clouded, red-ringed and sore, her eyelashes blackened with the many tears she’s shed because of him. 

“I don’t _care_ if you’re sorry,” she insists raggedly, placing her hand over his as if she’s about to pull it off her, maybe break a couple of his fingers for good measure.

_Fine. I deserve it._

Instead, her touch just stays there and he stares at their joined hands in some strange stupor. 

“Give me the knife, Hap.” Prairie reaches out as if there is no question he will comply, and he obeys numbly, passing her the weapon. 

“I understand what you have to do,” he relents, “Just. Be careful about how you dispose of my body. Don’t get caught. Here, I’ll close my eyes and you just..do it.” He earns himself another slap with that one, this time on his arm.

“Fuck you!” Prairie rolls the window down and whips the knife out of the car, where it goes flying and lands harmlessly on the grass. “What do you think you’re doing?”

She’s scolding him now, and part of him gets an eerie thrill out of it. Then he knows why: he wants her justice, craves it. The time has come to surrender to Prairie Johnson and finally admit that she owns him, she decides his fate. Fighting the truth of this matter has burned his life down to smoldering ashes and the ashes are hers. It’s past time to stop lying.

“I…I love you, and I hurt you!” Now he’s yelling, too. Impatiently, he wipes his tears away. He has no right to them, to feel anything; he’s rendered himself less than human so why should he get the luxury of human frailty? “You should kill me now, just leave. I’ll tell you how to get back to the others, set them free…I know, I understand now, you must have hesitated because I hadn’t told you the location of the house yet. I’m sorry, it’s—”

“Hap, you’re not thinking. I just threw the knife out the window.” She’s got this arresting calm about her now, though her breathing hasn’t slowed much and her whole figure still quivers with the involuntary spasms of adrenaline-spiked panic and trauma. “ _Stop._ I’m not going to kill you, you idiot.”

“What? Why? I think you should.” He blinks at her in total bewilderment.

“You’re horrible,” she accuses simply, shaking her head. She raises her hand against him and knows by now he won’t flinch. Maybe that makes her drop it before hitting him. “You know nothing about love. You _can’t_ love.”

“I know. But I love you anyway.” He sighs, even now aching for her, so glad, even though this is the end, maybe even the last time he’ll look upon her outside a courtroom. He’s so fucking glad he stopped the car. “I was lying to myself. I couldn’t leave. I—Prairie, I lied to you. ‘Indispensable,’ that word has nothing to do with you, that’s a word for a _thing_ , a tool, not an angel like you. It’s not just about finding the answers and it never was, it’s about your essence, your beautiful soul, I love you, I love—” Although he doesn’t have the nerve to actually look at her during this confession, he’s slightly afraid that if she doesn’t stop him he might just keep saying the words over and over because they are all that’s really left of him. 

Hap’s voice hurtles jaggedly over the same syllables that have kept him up at night since knowing her, sneaking into his dreams in spite of the pills. Whispering and cackling and shouting, while he was carrying out his daily routines or trying to relax over a meal, the words stiffening his posture and relentlessly nagging him until he was certain he’d go mad. _I love you, Prairie._

“Shut up,” she commands, stilling his tongue. Hap guesses his confession has reawakened her fury, since she starts batting at him again, albeit less convincingly, and he starts instinctively meeting her hits with caresses, wanting to comfort her before she has an anxiety attack, wanting to do anything to take away the pain he’s caused. “Stop it,” she demands, but she grabs his wrists and stares him down, eyes clearing at last. 

Prairie raises herself up higher on her knees and throws her arms around his neck, pressing her mouth against his with a shocking, all-consuming heat, running her hand through his hair and clamping down on his collar. Hap takes her by the waist and kisses her more deeply, slipping his tongue between her lips as they both moan at the perfect intrusion. He reaches down and finds the lever to move the seat back, and she climbs onto his lap, finding the hem of his shirt and lifting it, sliding her hands up over his back so she can scratch his skin. 

Hap groans, thrilled by the stinging sensation, taking her face in his hands and claiming her chapped lips greedily. His own mouth is still cut and bleeding, but she licks the red trail and sighs in unimaginable ecstasy. The kisses hurt too, but he’s in heaven, running his hands all over her body, exploring her lithe curves with unrestrained delight, making her gasp when he cups her breast and grazes a nipple. 

She pulls back from his lips and glares at him. “I love Homer.”

He goes on panting, giving her his heart in a short, supplicating nod. “I know that.”

Hap sees the state of her knuckles and thinks how it must have nearly broken her hand when she punched him, so he kisses her across each sore, bent bump.

“Homer is _good._ He’s the definition of goodness. And we had each other down there in that _prison,_ Hap.” She gives a small nip on his lower lip, reopening the cut that had just barely started to close, and his tiny yip of discomfort eggs her on. 

“I know,” Hap says coarsely, tugging her near again and sticking his hand into the hair at the back of her head, palming her scalp, their lips brushing again. “I’m a monster, a devil.”

“Don’t give yourself so much credit.” Her tone is hollow during this statement, but the craving in her sears through the next words. “I love him, because I _can_ love him, he’s wonderful and I _should_ love him, so I do and I will. But I need _you._ ”

“I know,” Hap repeats, though the revelation is fresh. He pulls down her dress, kissing all over her chest as she smiles for the first time since he stopped the car. Other vehicles occasionally drive by, the motorists not happening to glance over at the wild display of passion going on right beside them. Hap wants to hear Prairie moan again, makes it his new purpose in life, so he licks upward, tasting her nipple and then sucking it until her back arches and he gets his reward, the sound of her lawless joy. The angle is uncomfortable and cramped, but still he gets his hand underneath her dress, rubbing against her panties and finding to his astonishment that she’s very wet already. 

“Hurry up,” she implores him softly, caving in and losing sight of her imperious, superior position over him. Lifting up and resting her feet on the passenger seat, she pulls off her underwear as he undoes his trousers. 

He’s dizzy in confusion and pummeled by desire, guiding her back to him by her hips until she sinks down onto his cock, enveloping him with her tight, molten velvet. Prairie lays her head on his shoulder, just processing the sensation of him inside her and crying a little more, overcome. “ _God_ ,” she sighs, her arms hanging limply over him. “Even better than I thought. I’m worried that _this_ is love, Hap, and I love you, and I can’t, it’s so fucking wrong, I just want to love—” But she won’t say Homer’s name now. He has no place in this. “I can’t stop,” she tells him, starting to slide up and down very slowly, killing him with pleasure.

 _She’s thought about being with me, too._ How can that be? How could she have wanted him without his realizing it? Self-hatred will do that to you.

What could they have been if he had woken up to himself sooner, before it was too late? Hap has never been so happy, never so forlorn.

Then she’s rocking against him and his head slams back into the seat as he hisses her name. Prairie rides him relentlessly, takes his fingers and sucks them, then presses his hand to the base of her throat as her chin tips upward. “Yes,” she weeps as she comes, lowering her head back down to kiss his mouth, leaving him equally breathless right as he explodes inside her. Hap growls hard against her lips, squeezing her body so tightly that he suddenly realizes it must hurt and loosens his hold.

“I’m sorry, that was…I’m sorry,” He fumbles to explain himself but she doesn’t want to hear his apologies. About that, nothing has changed. 

“I don’t even want to move, I don’t _want_ you to let me go, or go easy on me. You’re all my sickness and you’re the medicine.” Prairie kisses his wet forehead and he can feel the change in her gestures, from anger to something bizarrely like the instinct to comfort him. “I wish we could just run away,” she whispers, “But we can’t.”

“Are you sure? We could…” She’s restored his faith in life, in their future, and he rushes on heedlessly, “We could let the others go and we could just drive off somewhere…start over.”

“Hap, it’s all gone too far. You know that.” She’s kept him inside her as long as she possibly could, and now she lifts off again and returns to her own seat, taking her legs to her chest and pressing her cheek against her knees, biting her fingertip and staring at him with the full knowledge that he has no feasible solutions to offer. Hap zips up his trousers.

She comes to a conclusion and adds, “Take me back to the others.”

“What then? I’ll turn myself in?” He will, if that’s her decree. Death would have been preferable, quite frankly. The thought of sitting in a cell while she’s off living a happy life with Homer sounds like an entirely suitable form of eternal torture, and it’s one he doesn’t know if he’ll survive anyway. But he’s not in charge anymore.

“I don’t know, Hap, I don’t know what I’m gonna do about you. About this,” She gestures back and forth between them, and they are two utter messes, so perhaps it’s only right that they bear every appearance of being so. “About us.” Their eyes lock and Hap takes her hand. Just for one tiny fragment of stolen time, it’s enough for them. 

Then there’s a rap at the window and they look up in alarm. A cop stands there, making that cheesy “roll it down” gesture with one hand that’s still holding the flashlight he’d used to knock the glass. Gulping against the onset of yet another new shade of dread, Hap lowers the window and asks haltingly, “Yes, officer?”

“I saw the two of you getting hot and heavy, let you finish just so I could come over here and tell you to pull yourselves together and go get a room somewhere. This is no place for that, okay? You’re in public, what are you thinking?” He shakes his head with a condescending chuckle. “I don’t know what’s become of the world these days.” His probably habitual tangent pauses as he suddenly notices the desperate look of suspense on Hap’s face and Prairie’s frozen agitation.

“Miss,” the officer adds, leaning closer, peering at them, seeing close-up their dirtiness and the tracks of the tears, along with the smudges of red. “Are you alright? Is there anything you need?”

Prairie sits up straight, smoothing her skirt and blinking slowly. She opens her mouth and closes it again. When she glances down and realizes that she’s still holding hands with Hap, he has to wonder if this influences her decision. But there’s nothing more for him to do or say now. 

Hap just lets go, just waits, almost calm now, trusting her. Her answer will come, and he’s ready.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a hint of a song I had stuck in my head in here..."Into You" by Camilla Cabello has the line, "I'm sick on you but you're the medicine, too." :)


End file.
